Chapter 150 - Castle in the Sky
Out in the hallway, Quill’s hourglass silhouette shrank rapidly as she walked down the corridor. A bright red pillow with golden tassels appeared beneath her as short grey fur bloomed across her body. Whiskers sprouted from her face and a tail erupted out behind her. Her many-pocketed olive green cloak shrunk to fit her new size as she took on the form of a bluish grey cat.
She yawned lazily as she stretched out on the plush pillow, which lifted off in the air and zoomed down the halls.
Before long she arrived at an exceptionally long dining hall lined with hundreds of stained glass windows. Coloured shafts of light streamed through the windows onto a ridiculously long table that was stacked high with an extravagantly prepared dream feast.
There were glossy, plump roasts of chicken, beef, sandlion, and wild thistle boar. There were bowls stacked high with fresh exotic fruit and zingy citrus-y salads. Entire sections of the table were dedicated to powdered sugar pastries, thick sweet cream mousses, and wobbly chocolate puddings. Dozens of delicacies from all over the world and many more dishes created purely from her imagination formed the most decadent spread one could dream of.
These were all laid out on a table which was so long it would have easily stretched across the entire Tye-Ann market and kept on going.
The grey cat played lazily with the pillow tassels as she zoomed by hundreds and hundreds of plates of perpetually steaming hot food and ice cold desserts. The coloured light from the mosaic windows flashed over her fur as she zoomed past.
At the far end of the table, a giant amorphous blue slime was devouring every single dish on the table. It had already consumed tens of meters of food, dishes and all, leaving behind a messy trail on the table behind it. As it oozed across the table the food was incorporated into its ever growing body. The food rose up in its translucent body, dissolving slowly.
The cleaned off dishes were ejected out of its back, clattering or sometimes smashing on the table and floor.
The pillow came to a stop in front of the slime as the cat sat up, licking her paw daintily, “Do you really have to be a slime?”
A pair of wobbly eyes emerged on the surface of the slime as a mouth croaked out, “This is just the most efficient way to enjoy this incredible feast. I can eat all this delicious food without any consequences!”
“Suit yourself.” The cat rolled her eyes.
“It’s been years since I’ve enjoyed your dreams. Who knows when I’ll get another chance?” The blob chuckled.
This giant blob was the old and portly Dr. Baolan. He had chosen this form consciously, a perk of being friends with Quill, who was the architect of the dream. If there were anyone else present, he would have resumed his regular appearance, but with just Quill here he let himself loose.
“How are the boys?” Baolan asked. Since this was a dream, his voice was still completely normal. He continued to ooze across the table even as his eyes and mouth remained focused on the cat.
“I’ve put Finn to sleep.” Quill said as she groomed herself, acting perfectly like a cat aside from the miniature coat she was wearing, and of course the fact that she was talking. “He appears to be fine. We can wake him after we’ve dealt with Zwei.”
“Zwei... Do you think we can help him?”
“Who knows.” Quill muttered, her ears twitching, “His psyche has been completely infected. If he’d been left for much longer, it would be too late to save him.”
“Is it Gantt’s doing?”
“How would I know?” The cat stopped grooming herself as an annoyed look crossed her golden eyes. “Do you think I’m a psyche expert? That’s Locke’s domain.”
“Aren’t dreams in that realm? I always assumed that to be the case.” The slime Baolan asked.
“Dreams exist in the Domain of Spirit.” Quill replied scornfully, “The mind has nothing to do with it.”
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“Ah.”
For a moment the only sound in the hall was the soft bubbly oozing of the giant slime and the clattering of plates behind it. The pillow hovered silently next to it.
After a while Baolan looked up at Quill, “Are you waiting for me? Should I stop?”
The cat yawned lazily, plopping down on the pillow as she swatted at one of the golden tassels, “Oh, please, continue. I’m in no rush.”
“Alright, then.”
~
Elsewhere in the castle Zwei was deep in a dreamless sleep.
He was lying on a luxurious bed with a down comforter and perfectly fluffy pillows. A silver light shone through a window, where a full moon shone in the middle of a sky bursting with stars. The air in the room was fresh and cool. The room was furnished with fancy furniture and little trinkets and was well kept and orderly. At the end of the room opposite the window was a heavy reinforced door.
The spell cast on Zwei should have kept him asleep, while Quill and Baolan were relaxing in the dining hall, but in that quiet, peaceful room, the shadows began to shimmer. Zwei’s cheeks twitched as his awareness bubbled up from the murky depths of unconsciousness. In the middle of that dreamless sleep, he suddenly awoke.
As soon as Zwei’s eyes fluttered open he immediately realized he was in a strange place.
“Where-?” He rubbed his eyes as he looked around in confusion. He sat up and looked around. He swung his legs off the bed, his brows knitting together as he quickly strode across the room toward the window.
A majestic castle spread out before him, complete with stone block walls, flag topped towers and winding battlements. It sat upon a grassy plateau on an island, but instead of being surrounded by water the island seemed to be floating on clouds.
He stood for a minute staring out at the scene. Far below the clouds a sleepy landscape of rolling hills and trees slowly passed by. A long winding river glistened in the light of the moon.
“A dream.” Zwei muttered, feeling the smooth rock of the windowsill in disbelief. “It’s got to be a dream...”
He looked down at his hand, which cast a harsh shadow on the windowsill due due to the bright light of the moon. As he continued to look the shadows under his arm began to churn. He jerked backward, his eyes widening as he let out a cry.
“No!” He staggered backward, his head whipping around as he scanned the room.
The shadows all around him came to life as multi-legged insects and fat, pulsating worms crawled out of the darkness. A dry, coughing laughter filled his ears as he backed into a dresser. Several golden and glass trinkets fell to the ground and shattered.
“They’re here- oh no, no, no-” Zwei grew frantic as he turned on his heels and ran to the door. “Go away! Leave me alone!”
A burst of golden light filled the room as Zwei shoved the heavy door open and stumbled into the hallway. A red carpeted grand hallway lined with empty suits of armour stretched out in both directions.
Zwei picked a random direction and kept running. The skittering of insects swelled out of the silence as a stream of shadows flooded out of the bedroom. A flood of insects chased after Zwei as thousands of shadow critters filled the walls and ceiling behind him.
~
Quill was having a cat nap on her floating pillow when her ears suddenly perked up. She stood up with a start, her eyes looking off to a point in the castle.
“That was a short cat nap.” Blob Baolan chuckled. He had finally stopped his feast and had relaxed into a giant ooze puddle on the floor.
“No.” Quill said, now fully alert.
A low rumble reverberated ominously through the castle. Quill’s eyes glowed as she called upon her authority over the dream.
In an instant she located Zwei fleeing through the halls, and saw the mass of shadows chasing him.
The fur on her body stood on end as she hissed, “There’s an intruder in the dream.”
The pillow did a loop de loop before vanishing into the air, leaving a clueless Baolan behind.
“Quill?” Baolan paused, blinking several times. The blue slime began to gather and rise up as he took his original human form.
Baolan looked around at the trembling castle with a concerned expression. For the entire time that he’d known Quill, he’d never heard of an intruder making it into the sanctuary.
“This is bad...” He muttered softly, absentmindedly reaching over to the table and picking up a roasted chicken leg. He took a bite, then looked at it with a shocked expression. The chicken had become completely tasteless.
“This is really bad!”
~
A dry, hacking laugh filled Zwei’s mind, echoing around him as he fled down the endless corridor.
Behind him, the shadows had combined into a thick, opaque darkness. Thick black tendrils covered in skittering insects grew out and grasped at Zwei’s limbs.
They wrapped around him, picking him up off the ground and dragging him backward.
“No!” Zwei cried out, his fingers grasping at the carpet. It bulged up as he clung on for dear life. His body was suspended from the air with the tentacles firmly wrapped around his legs and pulling him toward the approaching darkness.
“Stop screaming, you’re just making things worse for yourself.” A female voice said,
Zwei looked up to see a grey cat sitting on a floating pillow. He didn’t even question the strangeness of the sight as he blurted out, “He- Help me!”
The cat’s eyes glowed as the castle suddenly evaporated into a bright golden light.
Suddenly Zwei and the cat were suspended in the middle of the air with the sun high overhead.
Behind Zwei, a squirming mass of darkness pulsated. The cat flicked her tail and a crystal prism materialized around the darkness, trapping it inside. The dark mass bashed itself against the walls but was unable to escape.
“The first rule of dreams...” Quill said calmly, “If you don’t take control of them, they’ll take control of you.”